Trying to make things memorable for the students I support, we decided to make some poker chips, for each graduate. Since the final graduation exercise can be fairly grueling, we joke that they survived. We went with poker chips because they can be fairly economical to make, as contrasted with a coin or something more substantial. But, they’re also very fun and different. Doing a bit of research, I found that the companies that were known for making “authentic” chips for casinos no longer sold to the public. Weird, but whatever. I ended up getting sample sets from a few different companies, and here are the results.
I got a set of chips from an Amazon seller that apparently makes mostly cleaning wipes – Clip Wipes.
I also purchased a set from PokerChips.com, from Custom-Made Casino, and from an Alibaba supplier (recommended by big poker geeks on Reddit).
Size and Composition
All the chips claim to be equivalent to casino chips, but varied in the terminology they used. Alibaba called their chips ceramic, while the other three all said they were clay chips. It seems that once upon a time, chips were actually made with compressed clay, but what modern manufacturers call “clay” is actually a polymer that may or may not contain any natural components at all. They tend to be cagey about the specifics, but I’d bet that every “clay” is actually ABS plastic, just based on the feel.
Every chip but the Alibaba ones were 40 millimeters in diameter, with a somewhat glossy finish and a raised rim around the inset. Alibaba provided 39 millimeter chips, flat across the face, but with a texture that is kind of fun to play with. Every chip weighed about 10 grams.
The chips also have somewhat variable image sizes. The Amazon and Alibaba chips had 29 millimeter diameter printable space, PokerChips was 31, and Custom-Made Casino was 32 millimeters. While the difference doesn’t sound enormous, it was about a 10% variation in diameter. Fortunately, they were all quite legible.
Print Quality
I’ll let you see for yourself, but I judge the three “clay” chips as being very similar in quality, while the Alibaba chip has a clearly lower resolution print. Also, the Alibaba chip has more muted colors. The PokerChips version had more saturated colors, which didn’t match with the original art (the background should be purple, not blue). But, all of them are legible and seem durable. No stickers, all directly printed on the plastic.
Cost
Obviously, anyone thinking of getting custom chips cares about price. Including shipping, there was a bit of a spread. I made an assumption, that anyone looking to get a box full of poker chips is probably going to need more than 50. What’s a good number? I went with 500 as a comparison, because that is where most of the companies hit a decent discount. Every company offered smaller production runs, of 50-100 chips, if you’re looking for just checking things out before committing. I’ve listed them below, in order of most to least expensive. The company selling on Amazon only has a listing for 50 chips, so I just multiplied by 10. The rest, I used the companies’ shipping calculator function.
| Amazon | $649 |
| PokerChips | $378 |
| CustomCasino | $352 |
| Alibaba | $233 |
Conclusion
If I do this again, I’ll probably tweak the artwork to enlarge the image on the front at the expense of the lettering, and go with Alibaba. The price difference is pretty extreme. All of the manufacturers had pretty quick turnaround, maybe a week from placing the order to arriving at the house. While the Alibaba chips were slightly lower resolution, the textured finish is pretty nifty, and they are over 30% cheaper than the next cheapest option.
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